


Playing Carnegie

by 19thjester



Series: Sam/Al [4]
Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Music, Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8818777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/19thjester/pseuds/19thjester
Summary: Sam sees his nineteen-year-old self play Carnegie, sets a wrong right in his own past, and has a Christmas gift for Al.





	1. The Concert Hall

_December 23, 1972_

A crackle of blue light, and Sam found himself sitting in the front row in a large concert hall. Ahead of him, there was a stage with a huge black grand piano sitting in the middle. The whole place looked familiar and Sam strained through his Swiss cheese memory to try to remember why.

He looked down at himself. He was in an elegant black peak-lapeled dinner jacket with white shirt and black bowtie. He fit in with the other people in his row, who were also in black tie.

A woman in a long white evening gown glided onto the stage and took the microphone standing at center stage. She leaned into it and said, “Welcome to the Youth in Talent Christmas Concert. We are showcasing many young talented people here today. Please show them your respect. Now introducing Amanda Feldman of New Jersey…” The first player, a young woman in a red dress with long blonde hair in an updo, sat down at the grand piano, then launched into a piece by Chopin.

“Mmmm… I’d like to tickle her ivories. Wouldn't be as nice as tickling yours, though.”

Sam nearly jumped. “Al!” he hissed. “Where am I?”

“Come on, Sam, let’s find a place to talk.” Al was wearing a fir-green fedora with a black band. He also had on a dark green suit over a bright red shirt and dark red tie. Little rows of lights outlined the shawl lapels on his coat, and his shoes were a metallic shade of green. Sam thought Al looked almost like a vivisected Christmas tree. Fortunately, the leapee had been sitting at the far right end of the stage, so it was easy for Sam to slip away to follow Al to an alcove.

Al, cigar clamped between his teeth, was tapping away at his handlink when Sam joined him. “Okay, Sam, so you’re in New York City, in 1972. The guy you're in is named Stuart Reede, and he's a real music aficionado. He works for some financial company out in California and he got a special deal through his company to come here.”

“Where am I, Al?” Sam whispered.

Al looked towards the stage and gestured to it. “Come on, Sam, we were here before! Don’t you remember? Except last time, you were on that stage with a dog...”

“...Carnegie Hall,” Sam breathed, remembering the leap with the blind pianist. “Wait a minute, didn’t I…?”

“Play Carnegie before that? As a matter of fact, you did, and it was tonight. Ziggy says a Samuel Beckett of Indiana is on the roster for the performance here.”

“So it’s the day before Christmas Eve!” Sam squinted at Al’s outfit. “Is it Christmas for you too?”

“Nah, it’s March when I am.” Al shrugged one shoulder. “But I decided to have some fun today.” He smiled. “Not often I see a Christmas on one of your leaps.”

“Uh-huh. At least you’re not in ratty clothes pretending to be a ghost this time. What does Ziggy think I’m here to do?”

Al scratched the back of his head, frowning at the handlink as it beeped and squawked. “Ziggy’s not sure yet. Why don’t you go sit down, Sam, enjoy the concert? I’m sure you didn’t get to do that the first time around.”

Boy, had he not, Sam thought as he returned to his seat. They were on the third performer now. Sam rummaged around and found Stuart's program. Nineteen-year-old Samuel Beckett, BS, of Indiana, not to be mistaken with the playwright, was playing fifth today. 

Bits and pieces of the memories of this time were coming back to him now. He remembered being so excited and overwhelmed by the sheer size of New York City when he had come here, accompanied by the professor who had nominated him for this concert. They had rented a room in the hotel where the other players were staying, and Sam remembered hanging on the edges of the crowd, being too nervous to approach any of them. Playing piano was something he did for fun, something to unwind, and he was forever grateful to the piano rooms at MIT for giving him a space to relax. It seemed strange that he was being asked to perform here in Carnegie Hall, but that professor had seen something in his playing.

As the fourth player was in the middle of his piece, Al popped in, standing on Sam's right. Sam glanced at him, raising his eyebrows as if to ask, “What are you doing here now?”

“Ziggy is still working on it, Sam. She has a theory.” Al rolled his eyes. “But this is something you told me about, not long after we first met.” He smiled at Sam, his eyes crinkling. “I figured I’d check out that performance of yours, since we have the opportunity and all.” 

He pointed with his cigar towards the stage.

Sam’s right hand was on the armrest of the chair. As Sam watched the stage, listening to the Bach piece, Al’s left hand reached out to rest on top of Sam’s right, but the fingers slipped through. Al sighed, then held his hand so that it was over Sam’s. Gravity was no help as a hologram. 

As the fourth player left the stage, Sam glanced to his right, saw Al’s hand on his, and flipped his right hand over so that their hands were at least almost touching palm to palm. Then Sam looked up at Al and smiled back at him. Then the men looked back at the stage as the woman announced, “Now introducing Samuel Beckett of Indiana.” A brown-haired young man, not yet twenty, walked onto the stage in a dark gray suit that was a little too big for him. He held up one tentative hand to acknowledge the audience with a ghost of a smile on his face, then he sat down at the piano.

Al puffed on his cigar, the smoke drifting in Sam’s direction. “Where was your tailor?” he asked. “It’s a shame we didn’t know each other when you were nineteen- I would have helped you find a much better suit, and one that fit at that!”

Sam thought of reminding Al that he was in Vietnam as of 1972. Then he decided to not say anything since Sam liked having Al’s hand on top of his too much, even if he couldn’t really feel it.

The young Sam’s fingers flew over the keys, his eyes closed, his lips curved to the joy from the music. In the audience, the older Sam smiled too. He didn’t quite remember which piece this had been- it sounded like something from Mozart to him- but he did remember how very nervous he had been here, so nervous that he had to avoid looking at the audience.

Next to the older Sam, Al had a smile on his face. The smile lasted through the young Sam’s finishing the piece, the audience applauding for him and asking for an encore, and the young Sam sitting back down to play a shorter piece before he got up to bow to the audience then hurry off the stage.

“Were you nervous?” Al asked the older Sam next to him, his voice soft, that smile still on his face.

Sam nodded, as imperceptibly as he could make it for the sake of the people around him, then ducked his head. 

“Aw, Sam. If it helps, I think you did well here tonight. Of course, it’s no rock and roll or funk, so I can’t really judge. But it sounded good to me.”

Sam squinted at him, then shook his head, nearly laughing.

From Al's coat pocket, the handlink lit up and beeped. Al dragged his hand away from Sam’s to pull out his handlink and then punch at it with his other hand, cigar back between his teeth.

As the eighth player walked onto the stage, Al said, “Come on, Sam, back to that alcove. Ziggy’s figured out why you’re here.”

Sam, after looking around to make sure he wouldn’t bump into anyone on his way, went back to the alcove. In there, Al said, “Okay, so this Stuart Reede has some pull with a music professor at UCLA. Really great place to study music too, so that means something.”

“Is he here to help one of the players on the stage?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, he is. Matter of fact, Ziggy thinks you’re here to help yourself at age nineteen.”

“Me? How?”

“There’s going to be a party after this performance, where the best of the audience gets to hobnob with the players, and Ziggy says it’s the players’ chance to get scholarships for graduate degrees in music. She thinks you were meant to get a doctoral degree in music at one point. But then you did something on a past Leap to somehow knock that off course.” Al rolled his eyes and waved his cigar-holding hand in a “what ya gonna do?” motion, causing the cigar smoke to swirl outward in oblong loops. “So you’re setting that wrong right here in Carnegie Hall.”

“Oh boy,” Sam breathed. “I never even thought about my degree in music.”

“You told me before you left for California that this was a fun degree for you, that you got an excuse to bang away on the piano all day. It’s a shame you never used your talent in music to try to pick up anyone, let alone me! I always wondered what it’d be like to get you sprawled out over the back of a piano and have my way-”

“Al! Is this music degree relevant or what?”

“Yes, it’s also critical to the project,” Al said, not missing a beat but smirking at Sam anyway. “We’re missing a few scientists who came to Stallion’s Gate because you met someone at UCLA who recruited them for your project. So right now, Ziggy says that we’re lagging on a few things and we need those scientists back to get back up to speed.”

“All right. So where is this party going to be?”

After the last player finished, all fifteen of them, none older than twenty-one, filed out onto the stage and bowed to the audience. Young Sam’s face was flushed as he bowed, not expecting to have to come out again.

As the players walked off the stage, the audience took its time with leaving. The afterparty, Al told Sam, was in the ballroom of the hotel where the players were staying, the Midnight. 

Sam followed the people who had been sitting in the front row with him out of the auditorium and to the hotel. According to Ziggy, it was best that Sam schmooze with those people, since they were among some of the elite and Stuart Reede had some contacts here.

The people around Sam were chattering about the players who had been in the concert, and pointing out each of their strengths and weaknesses. Sam pricked his ears for any mention of a Samuel Beckett. Most of what he heard was questions on whether or not his parents had named their son after the playwright. (They hadn’t. It was a family name.) But there was one woman in particular, an elderly white-haired little sprite, that Sam gravitated towards. She was gushing about young Beckett’s performance to anybody within earshot who would even listen to her.

Sam asked her, “What did you like about Beckett?”

“I thought he had marvelous technique, and he put so much heart into his performance!”

“Is that so? Do you think he’d do well in a doctoral program?” Sam asked, thinking of his mission.

“I do believe so. Isn't he, what, nineteen? A bit young to be thinking of graduate school?”

“I know he's already in graduate school, for…” 

Al, standing next to him, supplied, “Physics, at MIT.”

“Physics! He's the talk of his family, from what I’m told.”

“Careful, Sam,” Al whispered. “You can't say you're related to yourself, remember?”

“How do you know this Beckett?” the old lady asked Sam.

“Not personally, but I know his cousin John, in Australia. Sam and his accomplishments are quite the talk of his family. Anyway, yes, he's in graduate school for physics right now, but I think he needs a little encouraging to go to school for music, later on. Why don’t you go talk to Dr. Henks about Sam? Tell him Stuart Reede sent you. I'm a friend of his, but I don't think he'd talk to a potential student on my word alone.”

The old lady winked at him. “Extra encouragement. I get it. I’ll put in a good word, don't you fear, Mr. Reede. We’ll see what Dr. Henks can do.” She shuffled off.

Al punched at his handlink. “Great job, Sam! Dr. Henks gets you to apply for the music doctoral program at UCLA after you finish your physics doctorate at MIT, and we have those scientists back on staff at the project. Sam? Why haven't you leaped yet?”

“I think I have one thing left to do.” Sam walked around the ballroom until he found a sign for the men’s restroom and went inside.

“Just once, Sam, couldn't you leap into a woman and talk to me in the ladies’ room?” Al grumbled as he followed Sam in, his hologram going through the door.

Looking in the mirror, Sam saw a fairly handsome dark-haired man in his thirties. It was a face that wouldn't arouse suspicion. “Okay, Al, is Stuart Reede staying in this hotel?”

“He is. It's part of the perks he gets from his company for attending this concert. Sam, what are you up to?” Al narrowed his eyes at him.

“Just trust me, Al. Why don't you meet me in the ballroom at eleven o’clock tonight? Let's call it your Christmas present.”

Al, eyes still narrowed, said, “Then you Leap?”

“Yes, then I Leap. Please, Al, for me.”

“All right. Christmas in March... what a concept. See you later.” Al punched at his handlink then disappeared into a wall of light.


	2. The Piano Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with a [playlist,](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkB4TknVYQzwsPUC-4a4gzTdXEWtN7HcZ) which is all over the place in terms of genre but I swear it fits.

Sam spent the rest of the night schmoozing and chatting with his fellow audience members about the concert, as Stuart Reede would have done. At ten o’clock, the young piano players were escorted back to their rooms for the night and the ballroom was shut down. The remaining people there elected to go to the hotel bar to continue the party. Sam tagged along, but he kept an eye on the clock. At a quarter to eleven, he slipped out of the bar and returned to the ballroom. 

Sam stopped around the corner from the ballroom when he heard shouting. He had arrived in time to see himself leave. A hotel porter was yanking young Sam out of the piano room by his ear and yelling that it was past his curfew, that this kid should be back in bed. The door to the piano room remained open. After the porter and young Sam were safely out of sight, the older Sam walked inside the piano room, which was just off the ballroom.

There was a grand piano in here, free for the hotel guests to use. Sam recalled one of the other players here telling him about it when he had been here before in 1972. Desperate for a chance to play somewhere that wasn't in front of a whole concert hall full of people, the nineteen-year-old Sam had slipped down here on his last night and played until he got caught.

After closing the door to the piano room, the older Sam sat down at the piano, relishing the shining black wood and the keys that easily gave way to tones that resounded throughout the room. He rested his hands on either side of middle C and closed his eyes, thinking of what he would like to play that night. Then he launched into a simple piece to warm up while he waited.

“Sam? Sam, where are you? Ah, there you are.” Al walked through a soundproofed wall. He had changed his clothes sometime in the last few hours. Now he was in a black robe over green silk pajamas with fluffy white bunny slippers on his feet.

Sam raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at Al’s feet. “What's with the slippers?”

“My feet hurt and it's cold in the Imaging Chamber this late at night. You know that.” Al sat down next to the piano on a chair, which appeared beneath him as he sat. “What's going on?”

“I was thinking… it's been a while since you heard me play, right?”

“Sam, I hear you play all the time on Leaps whenever you're anywhere near a piano.”

“That's not what I mean, Al. I'm usually playing as the Leapee. I never get the chance to pick what I want to play.”

Al gestured towards the piano. “And you get to pick this time? Why do you need me here?” He pulled the robe tighter around himself and shifted in his chair.

“Let's consider this my Christmas present to you, Al.” Sam smiled broadly at Al before turning his attention to the piano.

Al leaned forward in his chair, chin in hand and smile on face, as Sam played.

Sam started off with “Leaving Here,” singing along with it as he played. He looked at Al as he sang, “Girls leaving this town ‘cause you don't treat them right…”

Al huffed and dug in his robe pockets for his cigar and a Zippo, but the corners of his lips were still curled up.

After wrapping up with that song, Sam moved on to “You’re All I Need to Get By.” As he played, he sang, “I took one look at you, / And it was plain to see you were my destiny,” while looking at Al.

Al didn't say anything but instead hid his face in a cloud of cigar smoke.

As that song wound down, Sam smiled at Al. “Come on, chin up. This is all for you. Merry Christmas.” He moved on to “Try Me,” singing along with it.

Al scoffed. “Come on, Sam, do you gotta be so mushy?” He quickly rubbed at his eyes to hide how wet they were.

“I can be as mushy as I want with my Christmas gifts to you. If you insist, I'll play something that’s more for you rather than something that's more for both of us…” Sam’s hands went into the music for “Stand,” and he sang, “But you’ll be all right, you’ll be all right…”

Al rolled his eyes then opened his mouth to protest, like Sam figured he would with a country song. But he shut up when he heard more of the lyrics come out of Sam’s mouth, talking about how he'd been through so much crap before but had kept going anyway.

He was quietly puffing away on his cigar as Sam finished. Sam looked at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, as he went into the next song, “Accentuate the Positive.” “You’ve got to spread joy to the maximum…”

This song, Sam noted, did wonders for Al’s mood. Al was sitting up straighter at the end of the song, nodding along to the beat. Sam moved into “Dancing in the Streets,” and Al stood up as Sam launched into it, his chair disappearing. He walked away from where the chair had been and moved to the beat of the song, dancing around the piano room, the bunny ears on his slippers wiggling to the beat.

“Glad to see you’re enjoying this,” Sam said after he finished.

“Why’d you have to start with those damn Motown songs?” Al’s cigar punched the air for emphasis. “Why not more like that one you just played now? That's a great song!”

“Because these songs make me think of you and me."

"Shit, Sam, you don't have to get all mushy with me, you know that? I mean, it's enough that you're playing all this for me..."

"But I do. I’ll play you some Christmas music too.” Sam went into “Jingle Bell Rock,” singing along with it. 

Al’s gravelly off-key voice joined Sam's halfway through the song: “What a bright time, it’s the right time / to rock the night away…”

Then Sam went into Handel's “Joy to the World,” with Al still singing along. “And heaven and nature sing…” Sam’s fingers glided off the final notes, then he and Al looked at each other. “Got something in your eye, Al?”

Al shook his head, but he was still rubbing at his eyes. “Thank you, Sam. That was a… great present. Thank you.”

“Not a problem at all. I love you, Al. Merry Christmas.”

“Love you too, Sam. Merry Christmas.” Al leaned forward and his lips brushed Sam's forehead. Then he stepped back and gave Sam a long look, a sad smile on his face. “If you see Santa on your way out, tell that fat bastard bringing you home would be one hell of a Christmas present.”

“Will do.” Sam laughed, and then he disappeared in a crackle of blue light.


End file.
